Sunday drinking: 16 April
This week I’m drinking a Lebanese wine that’s full of the joys of spring
Back in 2011 I was trying to reinvent myself as a wine writer after a mediocre career in publishing. One of the first events I attended was a dinner put on by Wines of Lebanon, the country’s trade body, at a restaurant near Piccadilly in 2011. While we ate course after course of delicious food, the wine makers took it in turns to buttonhole me, pour me their most expensive wines and ask me what I thought as if my opinion really mattered. It was all a bit overwhelming. I felt very out of my depth.
A bit later one of the organisers of the dinner Michael Karam, author of The Wines of Lebanon, sat next to me and asked me what I thought of the wines. It was partly his manner, like a confessor, you feel you can say anything to Michael, and partly all the arak we consumed afterwards, but I was honest and said that I liked some of them but not the expensive richly-oaked cabernet blends that the winemakers seemed most proud of. They could have come from anywhere. Right answer! I had touched on Karam’s pet topic. We then tasted through the wines together and he asked me which ones I liked the best. I picked a few including one that sold at the time for only $4 in Beirut.
The cheaper wines made from the less prestigious grapes were the best or certainly the most enjoyable. This is not an uncommon thing in wine especially at estates in warmer climates. I find the cuvee tradition in the Languedoc is usually much better than the heavily-oaked cuvee prestige. Since then Karam has worked with Ksara, Lebanon’s oldest winery which you’ll know all about from reading Friday’s post, to release wines with more of a swing about them including a delicious carignan where they seem to have worked wonders with this often unlovely variety.
Following a visit to Chateau Ksara in 2016, I’ve somewhat revived my opinion on its more upmarket wines, they can age superbly, but there’s no doubt that the cheaper ones are never less than excellent. The most popular is the Reserve du Couvent, a blend of syrah and cabernet, which will set you back less than £12 at the Wine Society. But there’s a lesser-known bargain in the Ksara stable called Cuvee des Printemps, this is the wine you’ll often see at the bottom of the wine list in a Lebanese restaurant. In short it lacks status. Michael Karam described it as “the wine that got sand kicked in its face.”
But as long as you’re not trying to prove anything, then it’s the wine you should order at Maroush (popular chain of London Lebanese restaurants.) Cuvee de Printemps is a blend of tempranillo, the Rioja grape, and gamay, from Beajolais. And it sort of tastes like a cross between a young fruity rioja and a riper Beaujolais. In other words it’s absolutely delicious. Just the sort of thing to serve slightly chilled, drink in large quantities with lots of good food and people you like. Or drink it on your own with a takeaway pizza. It might already be my wine of the summer even though winter in Kent seems reluctant to leave.